


The Gospel of Samson - Book One

by Frankuuu



Series: The Gospel of Samson [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:41:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26089600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frankuuu/pseuds/Frankuuu
Summary: The continuing adventures (and therapy sessions) of the forgotten companion to the Eighth Doctor. Samson Griffon has a lot of trauma to work through, but are his days in the TARDIS truly over?
Series: The Gospel of Samson [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1894210
Kudos: 2





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy! Still figuring a few things out with this fic but this little introduction should work well to introduce the vibe I'm going for. Next chapter will be quite fun, I think!

The wait time to finally see his new therapist was beginning to wear on Samson Griffon. Acquiring the services of Dr. Valasquez had already been enough of a hassle, what with the state of limbo all insurance companies were in during this period of planet wide reconstruction. It took Samson weeks to find a provider even remotely in his budget, but these sessions were still going to cost an arm and a leg nonetheless.

Samson was okay with this, however. Aside from essentials such as food and shelter, he hadn’t cared much for the monetary value of things for a few months now. With his mother a drunken embarrassment, his sister nowhere to be seen (though not dead as he had long dreaded) and society just barely able to return to a sense of norm after the full scale Dalek invasion that had taken place recently, Samson didn’t care much for a lot of things. All he wanted was a sense of inner peace.

He sat in the waiting room, the only one there. There had been things hanging on the wall, he could tell from the areas of the wall where the posters and clock had blocked the dust, their absence now incredibly noticeable. The scene reminded him of old illustrations of what artists interpreted the apocalypse would look like, and though the world wasn’t technically over yet, Salmon figured those old drawings captured the atmosphere of this room pretty well.

To his side was a rack of old magazines, the only thing put in the room he could use to pass the time. He pulled one from the shelf, an issue of Amateur Gardening dated February of 2035. “How far away that year feels now,” Samson thought to himself. He flipped through the pages, catching brief glimpses of the world he used to know. A few seconds later he put the magazine back on the rack, he found he would rather be alone with his thoughts then be left with the unintended tragedy suggested by an article on how to best cultivate a patch of petunias.

Finally, around 25 minutes after he had arrived, the door next to him opened to reveal a woman poking her head out to see him, her name tag reading “Dr. Ariana Valasquez”. Her face showed signs of early aging, as though she couldn’t have been older than 40, she had already accumulated a few grey hairs in her otherwise black shoulder length hair. Her white coat had also seen better days, as they were tattered at the edges that suggested it had been through a few skirmishes. All these features, Samson usually associated with weariness and exhaustion, but when Dr. Valasquez smiled and spoke to him in a warm and inviting voice, asking “Mr. Griffon?” and nothing more, Samson found a sense of hopefulness that he had been sorely lacking.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he replied.

“I’ll be seeing you now. Apologies for the wait, just had a scant few things to tidy up before I was ready. Hope the wait wasn’t too boring,” she said somewhat cheekily.

“Oh no worries. I’m in no hurry, especially these days.”

“Well follow me then,” and Samson complied as she led him through the halls to her office. The sterile, white walls and minimal decoration reminded him of his youth, when Gemma and he would get their regular checkups. He always knew to be on his best behaviour for these visits, knowing he’d be rewarded with his favorite sweets at the end of it, something Gemma never quite got the hang of with her repeated tantrums and outbursts. Today though, it just served to remind him of the emptiness that was post-Dalek existence.

Dr. Valasquez showed him to her door, on the other side of which was a much more comforting setup than the waiting room he had been trapped in for almost half an hour. The standards were there, a cushioned couch for him to lay on, a chair positioned to the side of it with an ottoman at the foot of it, with Dr. Valasquez’s desk and work area behind the two centerpieces. “Lie down or have a seat, Mr. Griffon. Whichever you like,” she said.

“Aye,” he said bruskly, and laid down on the sofa per her instructions. She sat in the chair next to him, getting herself comfortable just as he was.

“Is everything to your liking?” she asked. “Your comfort will have a great impact on the effectiveness of the session today.”

“I’m...actually quite good,” he said with a hint of surprise. “This couch...I feel like I could fall asleep in it no problem. So firm, yet no stiffness. Better than my own bed…” He caught himself rambling and stopped talking lest he go on and on like he was want to do.

“Is that a problem in your life, Mr. Gri-”

“Samson is fine,” he interrupted. “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course, Samson,” Dr. Valasquez replied warmly. “Are you finding sleep to be difficult at all? That could be the root of a fair bit of problems.”

“Aye. I try my best, don’t get me wrong. But my mind gets a bit restless when I’m in the dark by myself. Sleep isn’t quite easy when all you can think about is your sister and...and Daleks.”

“I see. You were involved in that whole business, weren’t you?”

“Oh, involved isn’t the half of it, I was at the heart of the matter. Me, my sister, my mum, and even the Skipper when he finally showed up.”

“The Skipper?” she asked, raising a confused eyebrow.

“Sorry, that was my nickname for him. Most folks just know him as The Doctor.” The mention of that legendary moniker drew a surprised reaction from Dr. Valasquez, a small gasp escaping from her.

“You know The Doctor? The man who helped drive the Daleks out of Earth once and for all? THE Doctor?” she exclaimed.

“Aye, I know him, and I’d like to say I knew him pretty well. I suppose you could even say my whole mess begins and ends with him.”

“Perhaps we can start there, if you think they’ll help to explain everything,” she said.

“I can do that, yeah. Remembering things is so easy now...now that I can actually remember everything.” Samson drew a deep breath, closed his eyes and began to picture the scene in his mind. Him and Gemma in the library, the year 2030.

“It all began...at my summer job...Folkestone Library…”


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy. As I begin posting more chapters I'll begin editing titles in as I go along. I'll be the first to admit I'm writing by the seat of my pants just a bit, but that's the fun in these things I think! Anyways, enjoy!

“You’re not supposed to be here, you know,” Samson said to his younger sister Gemma, a small grin curling up on her face.

“Who says I can’t?” she asked. “Who made the rule that said Gemma Griffon can’t come to Folkestone Library on a normal Sunday afternoon?”

“I did, because I work on Sunday afternoons and you being here will just distract me from work,” said Samson. He had thought he made it perfectly clear to Gemma just how disruptive her presence was in his workplace the first several times he had told her. She was a stubborn one though, and Samson was beginning to realize the futility of his efforts.

He watched as her eyes darted all across the library, drawn to a new academic man each second. As her eyes zigzagged all over the room, his eyes made a single, half-circular motion as he rolled them almost into his skull. Gemma Griffon was his opposite in so many ways. Whereas he was socially reserved, polite and no-nonsense, his sister was a jokester, always on the lookout for a new man to call her own. In the time it took for him to go through two long-term relationships, she had had at least several more, none lasting more than a few months. That was undoubtedly what she here to find at Folkestone, a new fling.

“Now there are some real beauts here today, wouldn’t you say Sam?” she said.

“I wouldn’t know. I’m focused on books, not looks right now,” he responded half heartedly.

“Oh come on, you bore!” Gemma exclaimed, garnering quite a few shushes from the nearby patrons. Both of the Griffon’s faces lit up red in embarrassment, and Gemma made sure to continue her thought in a whisper. “Tell me Sam, when was the last time you were in a relationship eh? Six months? Don’t you think it’s time you start playing the field a bit?”

“Perhaps so,” Samson responded, “but I can tell you that my place of work is the last place I’d look for a guy or a girl.”

Gemma sighed. “Your loss, Sam. If you need me, I’ll be chatting up any of these fine men…” 

She paused, looking for someone suitable to talk to, settling on a man not too far away perusing one of the shelves. “Like that one!” she said, pointing the man out to Samson.

Samson looked at the quizzical man his sister had taken an interest in. His dress was old fashioned, considerably more old fashioned than the regular seniors who often came to Folkestone, yet this man couldn’t have been more than 30 or so, what with his handsome face and curly, shoulder length brown hair. His wardrobe seemed more apt for a period play at the local community theater than a stroll around the library. 

He was a gorgeous man. Even Samson could tell that.

As Gemma pointed him out, the man stopped his search of the shelves and turned his attention to the siblings. He flashed a warm smile towards them, then reacted with a certain amount of delight when he noticed Samson’s name tag, beginning to make his way over to the two.

“Oh no,” Samson thought to himself, “not only is he handsome, but now that he’s actually near me, I can smell him. _He smells just like fresh honey._ ”

The odd man spoke, his voice as smooth and velvety as his attire. “Yes, hello there. I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of a good mystery, I’ve really been yearning for something new lately.”

“Well,” Samson began, a bit nervously, “have you checked out any of our Agatha Christie books? I’m sure you’ll find something to your liking there.”

“You see, that’s the thing,” the man said, “I did in fact do that. I looked all over for the one single book by her I’ve not read yet, ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.’ And I could not for the life of me find it. Now just what is it about this innocuous little murder tail that bends the laws of probabilities themselves so that I may never find it? That might be something worth looking into. Yes, that just might be something indeed…”

The man stopped his monologue and looked over at the siblings, still standing there patiently listening to him. “Oh terribly sorry friends! Been traveling by myself lately, sort of gotten used to talking to myself, please forgive me. I’m the Doctor, by the way.”

“I’m Gemma, and this is my brother Samson!” Gemma excitedly introduced Samson to this Doctor character against his wishes, not the first time she had done this to him. “Pleased to meet you, Doctor....?

“Just the Doctor, dear Gemma,” he said.

“Alright, ‘Just the Doctor,” she said with a knowing smirk.

“‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,’ right?” Samson asked, trying to steer the conversation back to the topic at hand. “I’m sure we can order it for you if you’d like.”

“Oh don’t bother,” the Doctor said, “by the time it comes in I’ll be long gone.”

Samson looked at him, puzzled. “You do realize that with the mail system we can have it brought here in less than 10 minutes, yes?”

The Doctor’s eyes lit up. “You can do that now in 2030? Well that’s just amazing! I rescind my earlier statement, let’s put in the order right now.”

“Good...good…” Samson pulled his phone from his back pocket (a top of the line model he had splurged his first decent paycheck on some time ago) and pulled up the library page, typing in the title of the novel into the search bar. “We should have...plenty of...copies available…” His voice began to trail off in utter confusion. “Now that can’t be right.”

“What’s not right?” asked the Doctor.

“Well normally when we put in an order at our supplier’s website, they have plenty of stock available. Except for this book. The whole time I’ve worked here, I’ve actually never seen a single title be out of stock.”

The Doctor stroked his jaw in thought. “Fascinating,” he said. “Utterly fascinating. You know, when I said all that business about the laws of probability being bent I was mostly saying it for the sake of dramatas, but now I’m beginning to think there’s some legs to that idea.”

“What are you saying, Doctor?” asked Gemma, probably just as confused as Samson.

“What I’m saying, dear Gemma, is that I came here looking for a mystery. And I think I just found it. I’m off to investigate, if you two want to tagalong I certainly wouldn’t mind the company.” Without another word the Doctor turned around and began hastily making his way towards the front exit.

“Wait! Doctor...who-ever-you-are!” said Samson. “Where are you going?”

“To the TARDIS of course! Come along, I’ll show you the way. You’ll love it, Samson. I’ll show you my personal library, I’ll even get you back to work in the blink of an eye like you never left!”

“But how?!” Samson’s confusion grew exponentially, while a bright smile grew on Gemma’s face.

“C’mon, let’s go Sam!” she said. “This Doctor bloke, he sounds like a fun time if ever I saw one.”

“Well,” Samson began, “if he can bring me back here and I don’t get in trouble for it...ah what the hell, let’s go.”

Gemma let out an audible “yay!” before grabbing her brother’s hand and dragging him out of the library, out of the mundane lives they had known up until this point. For at least a little bit, the Griffon siblings were diving headfirst into a life of great adventure.


End file.
